“luck is like a lift and hard is like the stairs, lift may fail but stairs will always gets you at the top”

“Halfway down the stairs, is a stair, where I sit. There isn't any, other stair, quite like, it. I'm not at the bottom, I'm not at the top; So this is the stair, where, I always, stop. Halfway up the stairs, isn't up, and isn't down. It isn't in the nursery, it isn't in the town. And all sorts of funny thoughts, run round my head: It isn't really anywhere! It's somewhere else instead!”

“You know how it is when you’re walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you think there’s one more step? I’m like that all the time.”

“Silently, I lifted my doggy bowl off the floor. Then, with a quick, powerful flip of my wrist, I threw it into the back of Blondie’s head so hard that – with an earsplitting bang – it smashed flat before it ricocheted across the room and snapped the round top piece off the thick newel post at the foot of the stairs.”

“Mr Lorry asks the witness questions:Ever been kicked? Might have been.Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.”

“Okay, okay, we get it. You two really like each other,” Egan says. He nudges Keller aside. “It’s my turn. I think I have a date up there somewhere.” Bit Toni doesn’t appear at the top of the stairs. “Toni?” I say. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Egan adds. “She’s, uh…I’ll go get her.” I don’t want to reveal how nervous Toni is. That will put too much importance on this date, on Egan. “Nah, I’ll go get her.” Egan bounds up the stairs.”